| Username |
Post |
| SITARA |
Posted
on 06-Mar-03 11:20 AM
The War on Schools
March 6, 2003
By BOB HERBERT
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/06/opinion/06HERB.html?ex=1047969332&ei=1&en=8515f9446fd10db1
There's something surreal about the fact that the United
States of America, the richest, most powerful nation in
history, can't provide a basic public school education for
all of its children.
Actually, that's wrong. Strike the word "can't." The
correct word is more damning, more reflective of the
motives of the people in power. The correct word is
"won't."
Without giving the costs much thought, we'll spend hundreds
of billions of dollars on an oil-powered misadventure in
the Middle East. But we won't scrape together the money for
sufficient textbooks and teachers, or even, in some cases,
to keep the doors open at public schools in struggling
districts from Boston on the East Coast to Portland on the
West.
In Oregon, which is one of many states facing an extreme
budget crisis, teachers have agreed to work two weeks
without pay, thus averting plans to shorten the school year
by nearly five weeks. A funding crisis in Texas, where the
state share of school financing has reached a 50-year low
and is expected to go lower, has local officials preparing
for cuts in everything from extracurricular activities and
elective subjects (like journalism) to teachers, counselors
and nurses.
"Districts across the state have been in a cost-cutting
mode for a number of years," said Karen Soehnge of the
Texas Association of School Administrators. "When you
continue that cutting over a lengthy period of time, you're
cutting to the bone. We're concerned because in Texas we
have increased standards for student learning. So we have
increasing expectations and diminishing resources, two
irreconcilable forces."
Similar stories can be heard in state after state. In New
York, more than 1,000 students, teachers, administrators
and activists traveled to Albany on Tuesday to march
against proposed state budget cuts that are so severe they
mock the very idea of the sound, basic education the state
is obliged by law to provide.
Among the banners and signs waved by the students was a
placard that showed an American flag and said: "Public
Education - An American Dream. A Dream That No One Wants to
Pay For."
The superintendent of the Buffalo school system, Marion
Canedo, was among those who traveled to Albany. When she
talks about the cuts she's had to make and the cuts
currently being considered, her voice has the tone of
someone who has just witnessed a chain-reaction auto wreck.
"It's the worst thing I've ever seen, and I've been in the
district 35 years," she said. "I mean we're looking at
crazy things, like a four-day week, no kindergarten, no
pre-kindergarten, no sports."
If Gov. George Pataki's proposed cuts are enacted, the
Buffalo schools will be in a $65 million budget hole, with
no viable solutions in sight.
"I've done everything I could think of," Ms. Canedo said.
"I've closed schools. I've suspended service at schools.
It's been horrible."
There is no way to overstate the gulf between the need for
funding and the reality of funding in urban school
districts. And that gulf is widening, not narrowing.
Ms. Canedo gave one example of the many extraordinary
needs. "I have students who come here as maybe sophomores
speaking no English whatsoever," she said. "We have to make
sure they pass the English Regents or they're not going to
have a high school diploma. Our job, our core mission, is
to educate, not to warehouse. So we need to give that
student extra English all year long."
Education is the food that nourishes the nation's soul.
When public officials refuse to provide adequate school
resources for the young, it's the same as parents refusing
to feed their children.
It's unconscionable. It's criminal.
The public school
picture across the country is wildly uneven. There are many
superb school districts. But there are so many places like
Buffalo (including big and small cities and rural areas),
where the schools are deliberately starved of the resources
they need, and those districts are the shame of a great
nation.
When it comes to education financing, the divisions among
federal, state and local government entities are mostly
artificial. It's everyone's obligation to educate the next
generation of Americans.
It's an insane society that can contemplate devastating and
then rebuilding Iraq, but can't bring itself to provide
schooling for all of its young people here at home.
|
| Rusty |
Posted
on 06-Mar-03 12:09 PM
Ho Ho Thik bhanyo...."It's an insane society that can contemplate devastating and
then rebuilding Iraq, but can't bring itself to provide schooling for all of its young people here at home."
|
| Poonte |
Posted
on 06-Mar-03 12:45 PM
yes...and remember that $26 billion that the US was ready to provide for Turkey alone just so that they can bomb Iraq? Well, that money could be used to increase the Federal Government's fundings for education by 50% re!
|
| czar |
Posted
on 06-Mar-03 07:45 PM
Every missile that fired costs a $10,000 dollars apiece. Several thousand will be fired in Iraq.
The payload of a B2 bomber is about 45000 lbs. At $5 per lb for munitions plus aviation fuel and support costs, you’re looking at over $300,000 per flight. Several hundred sorties will be flown all told.
If one B1-B bomber is lost, it’s $1000,000,000.00 and change that goes up in smoke.
Each Tomahawk cruise missile fired will cost $ 600,000.00 At least 100 will be fired from American sea-based attack platforms prior to the air campaign.
The cost of the Iraqi ‘liberation’ and subsequent ‘re-establishment of democracy’ has a price tag thought to reach $ 150 billion. As the top tax rates have been trimmed and further yet to come for the highest income groups, they won’t really feel the squeeze. It’s the middle and low-income groups that are going to bear the brunt of it over the next 20 years of their working lives. That’s you and I. Strike One.
So where is the money left over to educate children? Nope. The solution is to allow in a trickle of the ‘right’ immigrants to keep this show going and who come in handy as economic slaves. That’s you and I. Strike Two.
Home run: social security will be broke when its time for our retirement. So will most other programs. We’ll have no alternative but to sell what assets we’ve accumulated and cash in our chips. Then head back to the land of our forebears and hope our savings outlast us. Those that don’t have enough will have to scrounge around and rely on the charity of friends and family that are still willing to speak to the returning ‘kuireys’ at that point.
So a few tens of millions of minorities will slowly starve in the bargain is no big deal. They’re already doing that now. Just check out the situation during summer even in a place like the nation’s capital.
The last two years saw insufficient funds to run the summer school program. Such often provide the only means for many children to receive sufficient nutrition during summer when the school meal program is unavailable. That’s in the nation’s capital.
Jail is the one sure way to ensure two square meals for quite a bit of the minority population. And you know who is paying for that as well. You and I.
So the Texas education system is in a hole it can’t figure its way out of eh? Well now, guess who made his reputation in education reform in Texas, which led him to the residence in Pennsylvania Avenue? Yeehah!
Drink up, fellers ! Cheers!
|
| Lonely_star |
Posted
on 06-Mar-03 07:47 PM
Before i write something .. i would like to know who is SITARA :-)
|
| MunnaMobile |
Posted
on 07-Mar-03 02:11 AM
Uncle Cracker...hehehehe..Sitara is welknown shinning star in the Sajha galaxy. She rises in the west and sets in the east and ofcourse glows without twinkling. Now you can write.
|
| forget-me-not |
Posted
on 07-Mar-03 10:55 AM
Lonely_star..why do you need to who sitara is?? Just put your comments ki personally comment garne bichar chha...
Don't get confused that lonely_star is not me..I am just lonely not a star ..
|
| SITARA |
Posted
on 07-Mar-03 12:30 PM
Czar ji:
Absolutely marvellous critical analysis! Enjoyed every bit of it!
Lonely_star ji:
Sitara, is just another Sajhaite who worries about the effects of war. Now, you are welcome to write your comments...I am waiting hajur! :)
MunnaMobile ji:
Kya ho spreading baseless rumours hajur? ;)
|
| Rusty |
Posted
on 07-Mar-03 03:16 PM
Let's fight together:)
|
| khimberly |
Posted
on 07-Mar-03 03:30 PM
lets fight together re, with whom? Fight in internet, like online sex hah,
that would be ...............you know
|
